


The Living Memory

by UnholySpectacle



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Addiction / Recovery, Alternate Universe, Drug Use, F/M, Female Sherlock Holmes / Male John Watson, Male-Female Friendship, Mycroft's Meddling, Mystery, Reunion, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 09:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholySpectacle/pseuds/UnholySpectacle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlyn Holmes hasn't recovered since the disappearance of her friend and colleague, John Watson. It's the one mystery she can't solve, and also the one she can't seem to let go. Very AU, fem ale Sherlock, eventual JohnLock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Difficult Woman

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t usually put these at the beginning, but I think it’s needed here. This story is AU. It features a female Sherlock. Also, there will be supernatural elements that do not correspond to either the ACD books or the TV show.

The voices leak through the walls of the old building, drift from downstairs. Mrs. Hudson is trying to be quiet; Lestrade thinks he’s being subtle but can never quite manage it.

  
If this is the quality of police detectives at the Met, Sherlyn reflects, it’s really no wonder that the criminal Moriarty—of not-so-blessed memory—was obsessed with her.

  
It could be said that he overreacted a touch, however. She smiles, a slight twitching at the corners of her lips, dismisses the thought.

  
Lestrade’s voice rises slightly, and Sherlyn tilts her head as she listens. The tone suggests he’s asking after her welfare, and that Mrs. Hudson is saying far too much.

  
His speech really carries. Perhaps Lestrade wishes to be heard? Maybe it’s part of a plan?

  
Doubtful.

  
Sherlyn sighs, already feels put upon. _Predictable._ Why must she continually have the same conversation? _Clumsy. Redundant._ If John had been there, she would have said her thoughts aloud. But then again, if he had been, the entire painful discourse she was about to endure would hardly be relevant, would it?

  
John is not here.

  
She’s tempted to bolt the door, but refrains. He’ll only come back. None of the detectives know how to take a hint, even at the best of times.

  
That was one thing about John; he knew how to be subtle. He understood far more than she ever acknowledged.

  
Sherlyn sighs, takes a clove cigarette from the pack lying on her violin case. The spark from the lit end reflects in the window by which she stands, a burning ember illuminating her pale skin. She exhales with deep satisfaction, watching the mirror image of the smoke dissipate toward the corners of the room. Lestrade hates cigarette smoke, these in particular.

  
Outside the window, the night seems very dark. For a moment, she closes her eyes. It could be that she is wrong about John. She liked to think it was the spark of understanding she saw in his eyes. But perhaps it wasn’t, and she’s projecting. An ideal version of an invisible man.

  
She can’t rule it out entirely. That’s what the therapist used to say about her father, about the hero worship she had once he’d left. Is she transferring the same framework to another male?

  
Yes, it’s possible John didn’t understand her at all. But perhaps he would have, if she had given him a chance.  
Irrelevant. He’s gone. She huffs at herself, at her entirely too-predictable line of thought. At the pain that makes her chest before she can shut down her unproductive line of reasoning.

  
Heavy footsteps clomp up the stairs and Lestrade opens the door without knocking. Rude. Typical tactics, boundary pushing to be followed by quasi paternalistic behavior.

  
Sherlyn stifles another sigh. At least Moriarty hadn’t been boring. Unlike this.

  
Lestrade finds her standing in front of the window, playing the violin and, other than one glance, ignoring his presence entirely.  
The slight look tells her a lot, of course: Lestrade is separated from his wife and now living in close proximity to someone who breeds Siamese cats. He’s gained weight around his waistline, has had to loosen his belt one notch. He’s been drinking too much and working long hours. His lower back is bothering him again.

  
“Tchaikovsky’s not going to put me off, you know,” he says, grimacing against the unventilated smell of cigarette smoke that now fills the flat. His tone is falsely jovial, with a slight tension in his tone. He didn’t want to be here. Interesting. Perhaps Lestrade has some common sense, after all. “I know you just started playing to ignore me.”

  
What Sherlyn is playing sounds nothing like Tchaikovsky, not even remotely. It is, in point of fact, a modern cello piece she has adapted for the violin.

  
She glances at him and pointedly says nothing. If he didn’t want to come, perhaps he will leave  
Lestratde sighs, which means he won’t. “Look. I came—“

  
The music volume increases exponentially. If it hadn’t been such a somber piece, Sherlyn would have increased the tempo as well.  
But Lestrade won’t be so easily dissuaded. He raises his voice. “Sher—If you would only stop for one second—I came because—“ He shouts, “John’s been declared dead.”

  
The music screeches to a halt. Lestrade’s shout echoes inside Sherlyn’s head, a meaningless feedback loop. The silence between them stretches.

  
“Impossible,” she says finally. To her horror, her voice wavers. To cover it, she takes a deep drag of the cigarette, blows the smoke just over Lestrade’s left shoulder. Sherlyn taps her ash, sets it down. “It takes seven years to declare a missing person deceased.” Her voice is steady now. She raises her arms, resumes her playing. If the music is more tentative, she pays it no mind.

  
Lestrade places a hand on her violin, halting her, and Sherlyn recoils, lurching backward. The detective takes a deep breath, holding up his hands. His voice, when it comes, is deliberate. Cutting. “His family had it expedited. I don’t know the details, but from what I could tell, some strings were pulled.” He sighs, clearly frustrated. “I had actually hoped that meant that you …” He trails off.

  
Sherlyn understands instantly, feels a sudden flare of rage. Mycroft. Her brother’s been trying to convince her John’s dead for months now. Almost from the moment it happened. Probabilities, the statistics of sudden disappearances in cases of violent crime, on and on and on in an endless stream without meaning, all couched in carefully-worded terms that she cannot react to without showing him more than she wishes. Feelings are not done amongst the Holmes siblings. This kind of manipulation is Mycroft all over. It reeks of his touch.

  
But why?

  
Sherlyn says nothing, allows none of her enlightenment to show on her face. She blows more smoke to spite Lestrade. “You were wrong,” she says finally, and now her voice is very firm, but there’s a watery feeling in Sherlyn’s gut, a weakness in her knees. She needs to sit down, likely to vomit.

  
She remains standing.

  
Lestrade is eying her now in a worrying fashion. He licks his lips before he speaks, and she realizes that he believes her irrational. Her. The widow at the crime scene who denies her husband is dead despite having his corpse draped over the good china.  
How dare he?

  
Her spine stiffens further, her face becomes carefully blank. She locks her knees. “I suppose that everyone was in agreement on this, then.”

  
“His sister signed the papers.”

  
Of course she did, but that’s not what Sherlyn wants to know. “And everyone agreed?” She asks again.

  
“Mary agreed, Sherlyn,” Lestrade says. She cannot bear the pity in his voice. She turns her back.

  
It’s funny. She’d actually believed Mary loved him. “You’ve delivered your message, Inspector,” she says. “You can leave now.”

  
Lestrade shows no sign of having heard her dismissal. “He wouldn’t have wanted your work to suffer for him.”

  
Sherlyn tenses for a fraction of a second. “You don’t know what he would have wanted. You barely knew him.” She poises her arms, begins playing again. Switches into another piece by the same composer, who is, emphatically, not Tchaikovsky.

  
There’s a long pause. When Lestrade speaks again, his voice is very quiet. “I knew enough.”

  
The music continues. There’s no reply.

  
The detective rubs a hand over his face. He doesn’t leave, which confirms what Sherlyn already knew. She refrains from looking at his reflection in the mirror. She goes over the chemical structure of dopamine mentally to keep from flying into a rage. Passion in times of conflict can only ever be a disadvantage.

  
“There’s more than one reason I’m here. I wouldn’t mention it now, but there’s been some pressure.” At least he has the decency to sound embarrassed. A glance in the mirror assures her that he isn’t, however, not even a little. There’s no face touching, no blinking. He’s staring straight at her. He expects her to do as he wishes.

  
Either his alcohol habit has killed off even more valuable brain cells, or he is under a great deal of pressure, indeed.  
Sherlyn plays flawlessly. She doesn’t care if the Met, if Lestrade, is under pressure, isn’t interested in their problems at all. They abandoned John to their missing persons department, buried him deep and stonewalled her with platitudes and sympathetic noises. Pointed her at Mary, who was always so appropriately mournful.

  
She doesn’t reply to Lestrade’s unspoken question, although a very small part of her wants to. She misses the work, misses the cases, the excitement. Of course she does. It would be so easy to take what he’s offering, to lose herself in the job of solving puzzles. To let the work fill her.

  
Lestrade begins to weave a tale of a criminal who uses common office supplies, binder clips, staples—and, interestingly, a laminating machine—to execute ritually displayed amputations while leaving the victims alive. Sherlyn lets him finish (it is, after all, an interesting story) and takes a moment to rosin up her bow. The heated pine and beeswax glides on with smooth sweeps of her arm. It’s a ritual that has never failed to calm her. Until now. She hates Lestrade a little bit for that.  
Sherlyn could tell him that what he’s describing is anything but ritualistic, at least not in the way he’s thinking. He’s luring her in, painting a picture he thinks she won’t be able to resist. And, for a moment, it’s tempting. She could solve this. Easily.  
She could. She won’t.

  
“There’s only one case that interests me currently,” she says, and she’s proud of how icy she sounds. “And I find that I am working it alone.”

  
Lestrade reels. To his credit, or detriment, he recovers quickly. “Is that what you call getting high every night? John would have—“  
Sherlyn doesn’t correct him. “Leave.”

  
“I could bring you up on charges.”

  
Sherlyn doesn’t bother to scoff. They both know he’ll never find anything, and if he does, the charges will disappear.

  
“I could bring a dog,” he says, very quietly. His pupils are dilated, his cheeks are flushed. It’s clear he’s furious. Sympathy didn’t work, so now he’ll try intimidation. How disappointing. “And the press, if I wanted to. John would probably approve, you know.”  
Sherlyn feels her temper slipping. She wants to punch him, stab him with one of the nastier virus-coated syringes she habitually carries on her person. “Get out,” she repeats. Her voice is eerily calm.

  
Lestrade comes closer, stands to one side. In the window, he’s the same height as she is in her stocking feet. His jawline is spare, his form stocky next to her own gaunt frame. “John’s gone,” Lestrade says His voice isn’t kind.“He’s dead. You know it, I know it. We all know it. You need to let him go, Sherlyn.”

  
She looks away. Sherlyn knows that John isn’t gone. The fact that everyone thinks he is—it’s just another row in the very long column of times that no one else believed in her but herself.

  
Even if he is dead—for which she has no evidence—he isn’t gone.

  
“I think you’ll find the door behind you, Inspector,” Sherlyn says. She’s every inch the upper crust princess she was trained to be. Dismissive. Cold.

  
Finally he storms out. Once she hears his footsteps fade, the door at the bottom of the stairs slam, and only once the police car he’s parked illegally in front of the building has pulled away, she walks to the front door, throws the bolt so Mrs. Hudson cannot enter.

  
Sherlyn tightens her dressing gown around her, pulls her heavy curls up from where they were trapped underneath. Her hair’s gotten too long. When was the last time she had a haircut? It was before John … it was that day, in fact. She had just come from her mother’s monthly hated mother-daughter bonding experience when she got the news. And she had wondered, if she had just stayed …

  
Sherlyn closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the door. She reminds herself that he was leaving anyway. He and Mary had just set a date and he’d told her he was moving out.

  
What had she said? She asks herself. As if she doesn’t know. As if she doesn’t have an eidetic memory that has perfectly catalogued every hateful word with exquisite, cutting clarity.

  
She had talked about the work, as if he were merely an asset. She had insulted his fiancée. And those were the high points.  
Sherlyn blocks the thoughts, prevents the reply of what she said that night. It’s done, and feelings are irrelevant now. It’s her duty to find John, her responsibility, full stop. Even if she’s the only one looking.

  
And she will, Sherlyn knows. She will find him.

  
 _If he could be found, you of all people would have found him by now, Sherlyn._

  
She ignores her inner voice. The silence of the flat is oppressive. The air is stale against her nostrils as she breathes deeply. How long has it been since she’s gone out?

  
Before Lestrade came, she had been clean one week, a landmark that usually meant she would make it a month and beyond. Because he threatened to bring dogs, she knows that she’ll have to use bleach cleaner to scrub the flat, to remove the trace amounts of cocaine and heroin from her hiding places. She might have connections that will help her out, but those with power have their own expectations of her.

  
So she’ll have to make sure it doesn’t come to that. But first, Sherlyn thinks, she’ll get high. Perhaps she’ll think of Lestrade as she’s tying herself off, toast New Scotland Yard with the syringe.

  
After that, she’ll play some more of the pieces she’d been practicing. They always were John’s favorite.


	2. The Missing Tag

Sherlyn knows it’s a very bad idea to use again, but as she has weighed out the benefits and detriments too many times to count, she dismisses the arguments against as irrelevant. In any case, they’re far less important than the object at hand. 

Sherlyn will use, and then she will climb back up out of it again. It’s what she does. 

Or at least it’s what she used to do, before Baker Street. And it’s what she’s done since John has been gone, since she’s lived here alone.

Sherlyn ignores the frission of foreboding she feels, tells herself that she needs fresh ideas, a new lead. A new perspective. There’s something bothering her, a niggling of an idea she should have noticed already, and she doesn’t know what it is. It’s infuriating. In the last nine months she’s trod the same paths, spoken to the same people, stared at the same (paltry) pieces of evidence so many times, so often that her eyes might cross from a strange mixture of boredom and frustration that makes her want to tear her hair out by the roots and scream.

And still, she has nothing to show for her efforts. The alley from which John had been taken—for surely he was taken, or at the very least violently coerced—revealed only blood—type O negative, the universal donor, somewhat unusual, and John’s type exactly—and scraped tissue samples.

The tissue DNA matched that on file from his military service. Conclusive.

The tissue is also what leads the Yard to believe that John was killed, or perhaps abducted and then murdered in a more convenient location, somewhere the perpetrators would perhaps have a bit more leisure.

Sherlyn frowns and shifts uncomfortably. Shoves aside that thought, as usual. Continues reviewing the evidence.  
Of course, there’s not much more to go over. That’s where it ended, where the investigation stalled. John wasn’t police, after all, however much the Yard liked him. It bothered them, yes, and they all had their various theories, but that’s all they were. Theories.   
And Sherlyn, normally so quick to pick up the threads that everyone else has missed, so eerily perceptive that people would rather believe she is psychic than that she can see what they miss—she found herself stymied.

Blood and tissue and a dead end.

If that were all, Sherlyn might have moved on, agreed that John was very likely murdered. She would have tried to find his murderer, yes, but she would have carried on. Taken cases from the Yard, the odd errand from Mycroft.  
However. That is not all.

There is the small, unexplainable matter of John’s ID tags. Namely, that one of his military ID tags—not two, but one, and hidden—was found on the scene. And this … this is the thing that Sherlyn finds maddening. The thing that no one else can—or in Mycroft’s case, will—understand.

Namely, that John didn't normally wear them.

Aside from the fact that she just notices things no one else does, Sherlyn knows that, on the particular day that John went out and never returned, the day on which they had their fight about nothing because she didn't want him to leave (her mind skims over the sentiment attached, it’s irrelevant here in any case) John was, quite distinctively wearing a t-shirt with no chain underneath.   
No necklace. No ID tags.

No dog tags, and yet later his tags were found in the alley. Logically, it follows that there are two possibilities: either the kidnapper(s) retrieved them beforehand (broke into the flat, stole them), or, alternatively, that John put them on just before he went out. The likelihood of it being John is, everyone agrees, far higher.

It begs the question: Why would John take them? Why would an ex-soldier take ID tags with him? Obvious: John knew he was walking into a high risk situation, wanted a means pf identification.

There’s an interesting thing about military ID tags. Soldiers never let both of their tags leave them. In fact, they’re often superstitious to the point of paranoia about both tags being taken from them, to the point that they will wear one tag on the chain, and the other in their boot. This way, if one goes missing, or one tag is damaged, the soldier can still be identified.

John, Sherlyn knows, followed this practice in Afghanistan: one tag around his neck, the other inside his boot, wedged firmly between his sock and the tightly-laced leather.

And that is interesting, because the tag found at the scene was scuffed on one side, as if from long-term exposure to leather. It was also very slightly curved, as if rom the pressure exerted between a man’s calf and a stiff boot.

Therefore, Sherlyn believes, she knows, that it was John who dropped his tags in the alley. Only he would have dropped the tag he kept in his boot. His kidnappers wouldn’t have known, would have grabbed the one around his neck if they left one at all.

John dropped the tag, and that one in specific, because he knows her. He knew that Sherlyn would notice. He dropped it to show from where he was taken. 

The Yard believes that the criminals dropped the tag to taunt her, to show off, to say what they had done. They don’t think the scuff marks and curvature on the tag are in any way significant.

But Sherlyn knows better. If the kidnappers left the tag, if for some reason she is incorrect in her conjecture about the tags and John was carrying both around his neck, why the scraped dirt over the tag, as if to keep it from drawing a kidnapper’s eye? Why not display it proudly?

It’s all so obvious. But it doesn’t matter, since that’s all she has.  
Sherlyn needs something new, has needed.

John has been gone nine months, and she’s tried everything. Every contact, every inkling of an idea. And nothing.

Three months ago, Sherlyn hit a wall, a wall of paper tacked in front of her, of yarn and headaches and missing connections, and of talking to herself when she would normally talk to John, a wall of emptiness, and she has not stopped hitting it since.   
It’s possible that’s when she started decompensating. 

Sherlyn places these thoughts behind her, enters the bathroom with her supplies and locks the door firmly. The tile is white and sparkling. It smells slightly of pine cleaner, thanks to a twice-weekly cleaning service that comes in and cleans, despite her protests (they also install replacement electronic devices when necessary and file reports that end up on her sibling’s desk, but at least he’s paying for it).

Sherlyn blinks against the bright whiteness. What happened to you, John? And why does Mycroft want you buried so badly?  
Sherlyn doesn't flatter herself that her older brother is motivated by concern, or at least not solely. If it were concern, his pressure would have evolved over time and not immediately. He’s denied it, of course, and until now, she had no proof, but the death certificate being expedited … She only had to make one phone call, to a clerk who owed her a favor, to find out all she needed to know. 

Why?

There’s something about John’s disappearance that Mycroft—or his office—doesn't want her to know. But what?  
She needs quiet; she needs to think creatively, and the usual processes are not working. It’s enough of an excuse—not that she particularly needs one.

Now she sits in the cool white porcelain of her bathtub. On the rising tide of the rush, just before it engulfs her, there is a short, very small period of hyper-lucidity to which she clings, even as she knows it will never last. It feels like the rest of the world is encased in a bubble of glass. She is separate, able to see scenes from outside. Objective. Inviolate. It is her very favorite part.

In this case, it is useful.

She watches the memories float on the surface, just out of arm’s length, moving pictures. What she is looking for is planted firmly in her brain, and what comes should reflect that desire, but what comes surprises her. It’s not an image of John just before he disappeared, not the last fight they had. 

It’s a much earlier, happier memory. Before Moriarty, before she faked her own death. Back when John still trusted her. 

Sherlyn slumps over a little further, squints her eyes in order to make the vague, underwater images more clearly.

After some experimentation, it happened that the best way to see them is on her side, her head resting on the ledge of the tub with her eyes fixed on what is, of course, a mental hallucination. 

Those parameters set, she can see it all quite clearly. She can see it all, and she is pulled inside.

***

John is leaning against the open bathroom doorway. He looks bemused. “Is this some kind of woman thing?” The expression on his face suggests he knows otherwise.

“Hardly.” Sherlyn has the mirror she uses for detail work, the one with a light bright enough to cure seasonal affective disorder. The bathroom glows.

“Nice suit,” John says. “A little, erm—“

“Large?” Sherlyn says.'

“Well, than your usual.” He shrugs. 

“It won’t be.” Sherlyn doesn't elaborate. John watches as carefully, she applies brown coating to one side of her face with tweezers, quickly substituting a fine brush to adhere the putty to the glue. 

John coughs. “Just out of curiosity, mind, what exactly are you doing?”

Sherlyn starts on the facial hairs. The key is subtlety: Two or three black ones on her upper lip, three especially long ones to one side of her chin. A tiny white one for the mole. Perfect. “I have a date.”

John shifts slightly. “Ah, well,” he deadpans, “that makes perfect sense now.” He coughs, hiding a smil as she applies off-colored, yellowish caps to three of her front teeth, grins in the mirror to examine that they’re settled in properly. “Are you sure you’re not, uh, making yourself too pretty?”

“It’s a setup.”

“Okay,” John says slowly, “getting warmer. And I take it you don’t wish to be, erm, set up?”

“By my mother.” Sherlyn sponge-applies foundation in a shade that in no way resembles her actual skin tone.   
“Hmm. And you don’t just say no to mummy why, precisely?”

“Money.”

“As in …”

“As in, I’ll have far less of it.”

“And I have achieved full understanding.” John grins “If it helps, you’re, well, astonishing. I definitely would not do you.”

Sherlyn gives him a scathing glance and leans over, grabbing a set of odd bike shorts that appeared to be padded in both the thigh and bottom, slips them under her too-large skirt and filling the fabric to capacity. John coughs. “Good god, are you sure you’re not going overboard?”

“Yes John,” Sherlyn says grimly. “I am sure. Never underestimate the power of someone thinking you’re a fixer-upper.”  
“It sounds like you speak from experience.”

“I do.”

John nods, slightly in awe at her transformation. “This,” he says slowly, “I have to see.”

Sherlyn arches an eyebrow at him. “Then come.” She adds, “You’ll have to keep a distance, of course. Stay at the bar.”

“It’s a date.” John is already getting his coat. He’s grinning. Sherlyn looks at him sourly.

“Yes, it is. Unfortunately.”

***

In the tub, Sherlyn stirs. Why this memory, now? There doesn't seem to be anything relevant in it; has her brain finally betrayed her? She’s swept up again before she can think of it further.

***

On the cab ride over, John says, “You do realize that most women try and look more attractive for a date, don’t you?”

Sherlyn shrugs. “Boring.”

John shakes his head, grinning again. “Only you. Male or female?”

Sherlyn glances at her flatmate, noting the tension in his shoulders, the pressure he’s applying with his fingertips as he holds his knees. “Male,” she says. “Mother’s choice, remember?”

“So she doesn’t, erm, know?” He frowns. “I thought Mycroft …”

Sherlyn looks out the window at the streetlights as they passed. A light drizzle has partially fogged up the windows. She’d taken the opportunity to wear a genuinely horrifying, bright green trench coat. It might have been stylish on an eighteen year old pole dancer. Twenty years ago. “I’m not actually a lesbian, John,” she says, sighing impatiently. “I would have thought you’d have caught on to that by now.”

She feels John stiffen beside her, then very deliberately relax. “But … I thought …” he frowns. “You said, when we moved in together—correct me if I am wrong here—that comment about my girlfriend’s rear—“

Sherlyn snorts. “So? It was a nice arse, objectively speaking. Likely all that yoga.”

“That is not the point, Sherlyn!” Now, she notes, John seems genuinely upset. He’s always getting hung up on small things like that. Labels. Tiresome expectations. Sherlyn sighs in aggravation. “I just let you think that, obviously. You made assumptions,”

“Assumptions based on you ogling other women’s body parts!”

“I never corrected them, that’s all.”

“That’s all! That’s all,” he repeats. 

“I thought you would be more comfortable living with an off-limits female, John.”

John shakes his head. “No wonder my sister kept laughing at me and wouldn't say why.”

Sherlyn just hums in agreement, and finally John sighs. “Well, what are you, then, if you’re not a lesbian, despite, I might add, massive evidence to the contrary?”

“Christ, John,” Sherlyn observes, “you seem quite worked up over this.” 

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just … I just …” he frowns. “You caught me by surprise, that’s all.” 

Sherlyn frowns. “Should I apologize here?”

John sighs. “No … no …” he pauses. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter. Why should it matter?” There’s a short silence, a sigh. Then, “Yeah, actually, I think it would make me feel better.”

“Sorry?” Sherlyn rolls her eyes. 

“Fine.” John looks away. The cab is approaching the hotel, a pricy affair with several attendants under a huge awning. “So you never answered.”

“God, john, does it matter?”

“Could you please just?”

“Fine. Nothing. Everything. I …” Sherlyn trails off, shrugs. “I don’t think the labels apply, okay? I don’t see the relevance.”  
“Relevance.” John swipes a hand over his face. “You don’t—“ He shakes his head. “You know what. It’s okay. It’s fine. Let’s just—the cab’s—let’s just get out now.”

“Finally.” Sherlyn finds that she’s equal parts amused and puzzled by John’s behavior. 

They walk into the hotel bar separately, and John perches at the counter, far enough away to be inconspicuous but close enough to enjoy the show. Sherlyn meets her date in character, all clumsy hands and overeager smiles. It isn’t long before John’s able to take the empty space opposite her.

“Well,” Sherlyn says, “That’s over.” She signals to a waiter, orders a single malt scotch. John raises his eyebrows.  
“Make it two,” he says. “On second thought … bring me two of my own.”

Sherlyn grins. “That painful?”

“I think you may have scarred him for life.” He snorts. “Hell, I think you may have scarred me.”

Sherlyn laughs, hard. “One down … the rest of my age bracket, and those much older, to go.”

“Oh,” John says, deadpan, “I don’t know. I’ll bet your family thinks you could pull off a little bit younger.”  
“Please, John,,” she says, “don’t spoil it.”

“Sorry, sorry.” John raises his glass. “To scaring off your posh young men.”

Sherlyn clinks with him. “To be fair, he wasn’t so young. Fifty, if he was a day. Divorced with a heart condition. I told him to see a cardiologist. That much sweating can’t be healthy.” She winkles her forehead.

“Always sexy on a date, the health critique.”

Sherlyn grins slowly. “I think that one might have done it, yes.”

They burst into laughter, ignoring the glares of the other patrons.

It was a nice night, so they walk home, still replaying the expression her date’s face, the way her practically fled from the bar. It took a while, but she remembers that neither of them minded. 

Much later, stumbling on the way to Baker Street, John says, “Look, I’m just going to think of you as bisexual, you realize.”  
Sherlyn considers that. “Will it mean we never have to talk about it again?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Fine.”

***

Sherlyn stirs in the tub with glassy, unfocused eyes. The rush is coming too fast, too hard, and she knows she took too much. She’s sweating. Blearily, she strips off her shirt to press her flesh against the cool surface of the bathtub. Sherlyn struggles against the euphoria that wants to sweep her away. Why this memory, in particular? She closes her eyes, goes deep into the room, the palace where she stores her most important memories, the ones she bothers to keep. How does this memory help?

The undertow of the drug is pulling her under, tugging her into other memories, of John’s laughter, and of darker ones, of his anger at her. She struggles to find what she needs.

Finally, It comes. Her eyes open wide. That memory … the walk … She and John walked right by the alley on their way back to Baker Street—the very alley where John was last seen by the CCTV before—according to Mycroft—it failed. The camera covering the back of those buildings was non-functional.

She goes back over their walk in her mind. Freezes the two of them, laughing. She’s jogged ahead there, done a spin in front of him, gesticulating to make some point, then she glances into the alley to her left—just there …

And that’s it. There it is. The whole point. 

Because from her vantage point of hyper-aware remembering, she can see it. There at the mouth of the alley, there in the dark, on the top of the building. 

Not one camera, but two.

Sherlyn has walked into that alley precisely twenty-five times since John was taken, and each time, there was only one camera.  
Two minus one equals someone took a camera away at some point between her memory and the point at which she entered it to investigate what happened to her partner.

Sherlyn doesn’t gamble, but she does enjoy looking at the odds of various events. Ironically, it was a hobby she shared with John (who is a gambler). 

The odds in this case lead Sherlyn to believe that whatever happened to John in that alley, it was recorded. And Mycroft knew. In fact, Sherlyn would almost ay money on the fact that, not only does he know, but that , in point of fact, he saw everything.


End file.
